MS Trial Success Beats Industry Average

Numerous positive studies are coming out for potential multiple sclerosis treatments, although the news is less positive with progressive MS.

Rates of clinical trial success in multiple sclerosis are nearly triple those in other disease areas, according to a review of compounds tested in MS over about 20 years.

More than a quarter of trials of MS drugs (27%) were successful, compared with the 10% industry-wide success rate, Jayson Parker, PhD, of the University of Toronto at Mississauga in Ontario, Canada, and colleagues reported online in Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.

Small molecules did better than biologics, and novel drugs fared better than drugs previously approved for other indications outside MS, they found.

But there was also room for improvement — two of the three late-stage failed trials occurred among drugs tested in progressive forms of MS.
“Multiple sclerosis is doing very well compared to other disease areas in terms of clinical trial risk management and that’s fantastic,” Parker told MedPage Today. “However, this can go further. Biomarker development, combined with patient history, has not seen much progress in MS and that is a key opportunity.”

In the review, the investigators collected data on 53 candidate MS drugs tested in 58 phase I to phase III clinical trials from 1998 through 2015.

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